'Inside Amy Schumer' even better in Season 3

Amy Schumer, who just might be the hottest comic in pop culture right now, returns for Season 3 tonight on Comedy Central with one of her strongest half hours yet.

Remember how good she and Baltimore's Josh Charles were last year as a pair of workers in fast food drive-thru restaurant.

They're back together in tonight's season opener in a parody of "Friday Night Lights." He's the driven young high school football coach, and she's his sexy, heavily-drinking wife with the worst Texas accent I ever heard. (I think she's trying to do "Gone With The Wind.")

Anyway, the sketch is not only funny and instantly engaging because of the talents of Schumer and Charles, it's really, really smart. The social commentary is sharp-edged and keenly-focused to a degree I can't remember seeing on her series.

The comic premise finds the new coach trying to build character by telling the boys on his team that rape is no longer allowed. His dictum not only angers the players, who think it's part of their entitlement as athletes, it also upsets their parents, the town, everyone. Elderly women walking by his house stop to spit on his lawn to show their dissatisfaction with him. Even his wife asks him to end the no-rape policy.

Finally, at halftime of his first game when he realizes that the team is not going all out for him and losing because of the no-rape decree, he slams the blackboard and yells, "How do I get through to you boys that football is not about rape. It's about violently dominating anyone who stands between you and what you want."

That's really smart stuff and daring material, and, of course, Charles, a superb comic and dramatic actor, nails the line so that the viewer can't miss the resonance of a commentary that extends well beyond that make-believe Texas high school locker room to every home in American tuned to the NFL on Sunday afternoons.

Let's hear it not only for Schumer and Charles, but her writers as well.

There are other segments that are superb. One about actresses in Hollywood and the day they are deemed no longer objects of desire by male culture is just as astute, and features some big name guests. But I will say no more for fear of spoilers.

Yes, Amy Schumer is still pretty hardcore in her discussions of sex, parts of the body related to sex, and a dozen other aspects of sexual desire. But that's very much what makes her Amy Schumer in agood way.

If you're uncomfortable with such frank, adult satire, Comedy Central at 10:30 tonight is probably not the place for you.